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College reading assignments

Just a general topic. I'm on my second semester now, currently reading The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche. It's a pretty tough read. I feel like he just uses big words and doesn't support or explain some of the claims he makes. Anywho, discuss assigned readings you've had?

I'm pretty sure my professor is a moron as well. He's a nice guy but incredibly blinded by his own bias. He says Nietzsche isn't anti-semitic, yet I quote from his own book:
"... the Jews are the most disastrous people in world history.."

"Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived."

"Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived."

I'm pretty sure my professor is a moron as well. He's a nice guy but incredibly blinded by his own bias. He says Nietzsche isn't anti-semitic, yet I quote from his own book:
"... the Jews are the most disastrous people in world history.."

neitszche's feelings about the jews are philosophically complex, but he wasn't an anti-semite as they would have been defined in his day. you'd have to read the geneology of morals to understand more of what he means by statements like that.

"I'll go," said Chagataev. "But what will I do there? Build socialism?"
"What else?" said the secretary.

"Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived."

ha, i just read the first 2 chapters of proslogion and its pretty amusing. the argument you quoted is basically:

we can imagine god to exist, by imagining some abstract "being" that is greater than all other possible beings. but if we conceive of the possibility of this being greater than any other being, but assume it doesn't actually exist, then we're actually NOT imagining a being greater than any other, because we could then imagine an all-mighty being that actually DOES exist, which would be a greater being itself. so if we're imagining an all-mighty being greater than any other being, and we obviously CAN conceive of/understand such a thing, then it HAS to exist in reality.

"I'll go," said Chagataev. "But what will I do there? Build socialism?"
"What else?" said the secretary.

but anyway, here is the undisputed all time king of fucked up philosophy quotes, by kierkegaard:

“The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self.”

"I'll go," said Chagataev. "But what will I do there? Build socialism?"
"What else?" said the secretary.

neitszche's feelings about the jews are philosophically complex, but he wasn't an anti-semite as they would have been defined in his day. you'd have to read the geneology of morals to understand more of what he means by statements like that.

Maybe I was quick to judge him. After all, I've only started reading his work. Still, without that prior knowledge, how would I have known?

read beyond good and evil. it's one of his famous ones. pretty much that one is about that philosophers are more about power and trying to get other people to see the world the way they percieve it as. and a lot of philosophy at the time he wrote it stemed from religion.
or in other words, most philosophy isn't really about finding truth, but getting others to view the world as the philosopher.